‘Wakf board’s nod must to alienate its property’

TNN | Updated: Dec 6, 2016, 8:33 IST

(Representative image)

KOCHI: Alienation of wakf property by the trust through court-approved compromise is impermissible if sanction is not obtained from the state wakf board, says the high court. The court’s decision was after considering an appeal filed by Kerala State Wakf Board challenging Ernakulam wakf tribunal’s order allowing alienation of 154-acre Sathar Island near Paravoor in Kochi on the basis of a compromise settlement entered into between the trust and third parties and registered with the court. Though the wakf board was a party to the case earlier, the tribunal had allowed a plea to delete it from the list of parties and later on accepted the settlement. At the high court, the Wakf Board contended that the compromise should not have been accepted by the tribunal as Section 93 of the Wakf Act specifically says compromising of suits or court proceedings in relation to wakf property should not be allowed without the sanction of the Wakf Board. Setting aside the decree granted by the tribunal, a division bench of the high court said, “Wakf Board is a necessary party to all suits and proceedings relating to a Wakf property. This is the prescription of the Act. The Wakf Board was made a party to the suit from which these revisions arise. That authority was excluded from the process of arriving at the compromise.”

“The very presence of the Wakf Board in the Wakf Tribunal as a party to such suits is to ensure that the best interest of the Wakf is always under the continuous gaze of the Wakf Board which is duty bound to alert the Wakf Tribunal if something were to go against the interest of the Wakf. Therefore, the procedure adopted by the court below by deleting the Wakf Board from the party array and thereafter, recording a compromise between the parties resulting in the alienation of the property through court cannot be countenanced. It is a clear infraction of the all guarding doctrines inbuilt into the statutory provisions in the Act,” the court added. Restoring the Wakf Board as a party to the suit, the court directed the wakf tribunal to dispose the case expeditiously.